The draw layer: a metaphysical space (and how to bring it back down to
earth)

Word's draw layer is a metaphysical space where floating objects reside. It
really isn't a layer, since floating objects can be sent behind the text layer
or brought out in front of it. Either way, they continue to reside in the draw
layer.

The relationship between the draw layer and the text layer is a bit unusual,
to say the least. As noted, the draw layer is both behind and in front of the
text layer. Any floating object can be right-clicked to bring up a menu that
includes an
“Order”
command that lets you send the object behind or bring it out in front of the
surrounding text (as well as behind or in front of any other floating objects).

Any objects which you can insert using the Drawing toolbar – for instance,
Text Boxes – reside in the Drawing layer.

Some things to watch out for with objects in the drawing layer

1. Any text residing in the Drawing layer is immune to
many of Word's standard features such as Caption numbering, auto generated
tables of contents, tables of figures etc.

If the above features are critical to your document, it is therefore usually
better to use Frames rather than Text Boxes. Frames float, like Text
Boxes, yet reside in the text layer, so are accessible to the above features.

This is particularly an issue when you add a caption to a floating graphic.
By default Word puts the caption in a textbox, which means it won't update and
won't appear in the Table of Figures. To get round this you need to:

a)

Convert the floating graphic to an
inline graphic. Select Format + Picture, and if using
Word 97, click the Position tab and uncheck Float Over Text; if using Word 2000~2003 click the Layout tab and select Inline with Text.

b)

Delete the textbox, and reinsert the caption in the text layer.

c)

If you really need the graphic to float, you can then select both the
inline graphic and the caption simultaneously and put them into a frame.

To put them into a frame you need to use the Insert Frame command,
which has been cunningly hidden on the Forms toolbar; you can get at it by
right-clicking on any toolbar, selecting the Forms Toolbar, and clicking the
Insert Frames button:

You can make the button more easily accessible for when you next need it by
selecting Tools + Customize, and holding the Ctrl key down while you drag
the button from the Forms toolbar to the Insert menu, where it rightfully
belongs. Or see: How can I add the
Insert Frame command to the Insert menu?.

2. Floating objects (even frames) can be a maintenance
nightmare in any document that will ever need to be amended or pasted
from. They should certainly be avoided in long documents, unless there is
no alternative but to use them. Strange things tend to happen when you add
text which precedes a floating object – such as part of it suddenly appearing in
the footer of one page and the rest appearing in the header of the following
page!

You can generally simulate text-wrapping quite convincingly by putting your
(inline) graphic into one cell of a borderless, single-row, two-cell table; and
putting your text in the other cell.

If you need to have call-outs pointing at various parts of a graphic, one way
of getting around the problem is to do a screen capture of the complete drawing,
paste it into a graphics package, crop it, then paste it back into Word as an
inline graphic. Or another workaround is to create the drawing in another
application such as PowerPoint, and paste it into Word inline. There are
others as well, but these two are probably the simplest.

3. Floating objects use more memory. This can be an
particular problem when printing. If your pages fail to print in full or print
fuzzily, converting floating graphics to inline ones, and using tables rather
than textboxes, generally fixes it.

Using tables rather than textboxes is usually to be preferred in any case –
for some reason which I've never understood, inexperienced Word users tend to
create their “tables”
by putting several textboxes alongside each other! Please don't fall into this
trap! Tables are far easier to create, maintain, and work far better as tables
than textboxes do. Only use textboxes when tables really can't be used.